Sunday, March 11, 2007

Now, though, the single largest threat to our global well-being is something we can't easily see: climate change. For the layperson who isn't familiar with carbon trading and emissions credits and the greenhouse effect, these are the things we can grasp: Our world's climate is getting warmer and our weather patterns are likely to change. Those changes will potentially wreak havoc with everything from our forests to our economy. Carbon dioxide emissions from burning fossil fuel is the major cause of global warming.

Unlike the environmental problems we faced in past, the solutions to climate change are mind-numbingly technical and complex.

For several years, wonks, geeks and politicians in the Northeast have been hard at work on a regional initiative to lower fossil fuel pollution by curbing emissions from power plants. They have fashioned a plan called the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, which requires member states to lower their power plant emissions by nearly 20 percent over the next dozen years. Maine was one of its early supporters; Gov. John Baldacci signed onto it with great fanfare several years ago. At its simplest, the plan calls for turning fossil-fuel pollution into a commodity; there will be a price on putting emissions through your smokestack and out into the air.

The principle behind the plan is to create a market that will ultimately drive down the amount of pollution; if it costs you to pollute, then you'll search for efficiencies that will lower your pollution. It's an approach that has been used successfully in the past to stem the pollutants that cause acid rain.

Under this initiative, the state will allot each polluter credits for decreasing emissions. If the polluter exceeds its emissions allowance, it can buy credits from those polluters who are polluting less than their credits allow -- or it can lower its emissions to meet its allowance. Polluters can also trade or bank their emissions allowances; if they don't use them all one year, they can use them the next.

One of the decisions that must be made by each state is whether it will give away those credits, or auction them. Advocates of the greenhouse gas plan say that the only effective way for the state to run the program is to make pollution expensive by charging for the credits. The money generated by the credit fees can be used for a variety of purposes, from rebates for utility customers to state energy conservation and efficiency programs. Over the short term, economic analysts say that the initiative's cost will raise retail electricity prices in the region by single digits; over the long term, increased efficiencies will result in lower demand and thus lower electric prices.

The initiative currently has 10 states signed on to it. All of them must now devise a set of rules that will decrease power plant emissions. Right now, competing versions of those rules are being pushed by various interest groups in Maine. Certain industries -- paper mills, for example -- want exemptions from the costs of complying. Environmentalists say that exemptions will gut the heart of the program and make it useless. Some lawmakers say they want the pollution fees to be returned in part to ratepayers; others say they want to see those fees applied to conservation programs which will, ultimately, result in decreased energy costs for consumers.

Writing Maine's rules has become intensely political. The Baldacci administration has found itself buffeted by industry demands to limit the program and conservationists' demands to keep it on target to reach its goals.

In the absence of an administration proposal to implement the initiative, a bipartisan group of lawmakers announced their support of a bill to do it sponsored by Rep. Ted Koffman, D-Bar Harbor. The bill sets limits on pollution; requires polluters to pay for the right to pollute (which is translated into credits they can trade or sell); and requires that the $15 million to $30 million in credit payments be spent on energy efficiency programs for industries and homes. All this, proponents say, will lower the region's greenhouse gas emissions and lower the cost of energy by decreasing demand for it.

The Koffman bill is a solid approach that accurately reflects the important and necessary goals of the regional greenhouse gas initiative. We hope that the Baldacci administration will do no less in its forthcoming bill and the lawmakers will not be forced to choose between the right and the wrong approach -- but rather, different versions of the right way to go about fighting global warming.